ABSTRACT

Sigmund Freud's conception of the origin of the ego as a structure which develops on the surface of the psyche for the purpose of regulating id-impulses in relation to reality will thus give place to a conception of the ego as the source of impulse-tension from the beginning. From a practical psychotherapeutic standpoint the analysis of impulses considered apart from structures proves itself a singularly sterile procedure, and particularly so in the case of patients with well-marked schizoid tendencies. The dreamer's "ego" is therefore split in conformity with the schizoid position; and it is split into three separate egos—a central ego and two other subsidiary egos which are both, relatively speaking, cut off from the central ego. In terms of the line of thought so far developed, repression is a process originating in a rejection of both the needed object and the rejecting object on the part of the undivided ego.